"Black Jack" Dagon spent the prime of his life inside a prison cell in Little Hope, Maine after a drunken punch left a man dead on the eve of Jack’s biggest boxing match. Blackballed from the ring on his release, Jack has replaced his legendary right hook with grit and wit to reinvent himself as a private investigator. Jobs come easy to him as his city, emboldened by the progress of the Steam Revolution, has become spoiled by corruption and murder.
His work turns personal when he is hired to investigate the death of an engineering genius who happens to be an old lover’s twin. Before long, Jack learns that the murder was merely a cover-up for a far greater crime: the theft of the world’s most valuable invention. Plenty of people stand to benefit from the death of Lenore Marsden, and when the police shy away from the investigation it is up to Jack to find out who pulled the trigger. With the help of his smart, sharp-tongued teenage daughter Gemma, Jack embarks on a quest to keep a world-changing invention out of the wrong hands and soon learns that the victim was far more cunning than anyone had imagined.
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Why should you support The Marsden Wheel?
The short answer is: because it is a genuinely good read, and without this kind of backing, you won’t find a book of its kind at your local bookseller.
Steampunk holds a strange place among the sci-fi subgenres: it has a solid core of rabid, adoring fans, but far more readers struggle to pinpoint the exemplar steampunk novel. (How many times have I heard "Oh...like that League of Extraordinary Gentlemen movie?" followed by the wrinkled nose of disapproval). Some go so far as to say that steampunk is all but dead, and those naysayers can make a good argument that some of the genre’s best examples are quickly becoming ancient history. (The Difference Engine is 25 years old this year; The Anubis Gates is 32. And now I feel a little old, thank you very much). Pitching steampunk to an agent is a tough sell when lukewarm erotica and fairytale retellings ("It’s like Hansel and Gretel, but IN SPACE!") continue to top the charts. Agents aren’t in the business to take risks - they make money by predicting trends. Steampunk just isn’t trendy.
But a solid story with great characters is worth supporting, even if its genre doesn’t crack the NYT list. The Marsden Wheel offers a rich world full of three-dimensional characters and a story that keeps the pages turning. Step into Little Hope, Maine of the late 1800s with me for a moment: just a few years prior to our arrival, Little Hope was a tiny coastal city that struggled to recover from the betrayal of the false promise of prosperity from a new rail line. But when the Steam Revolution hit, Little Hope swelled overnight and its infrastructure couldn’t keep up with the growth. The city is filthy, crime is everywhere, and the police are overwhelmed. The new steam-driven technology is part amazing and part terrifying. And in all of that, a seemingly insignificant murder - just one of hundreds - reveals something astounding.
Read adventurously. Please support The Marsden Wheel.